Cat in a Sapphire Slipper

by Carole Nelson Douglas

  “My eldest brother,” Nicky said, grinning.

  “You must be just a baby,” Karen suggested.

  “The youngest, yes.”

  “Your mother must be quite an interesting woman.”

  Temple could see her mother calculating thirty years of childbearing. If she only knew how many brothers there were, she’d be really impressed. Unlike Mama Fontana, Karen had ended her streak of four sons with a lone girl. That family position left Temple cosseted and fussed over and bullied and controlled way too much.

  It was nice to be from Las Vegas now, on her own, making her solo choices. One of which . . .

  “Is Matt coming along for dinner too?” Nicky asked, turning to Temple as if giving her a cue.

  He didn’t mean it that way, but it gave Temple the perfect opening. She looked at her parents in explanation. “I have a significant other coming to dinner too. Matt Devine is a local celebrity. He hosts a syndicated radio advice show.”

  There!

  Karen dropped her fork, which had been attacking the remaining battered items that she’d appropriated to her appetizer plate. She might inveigh against fatty foods, but a Minnesota blizzard-ridden winter made them a number-one crave. “Matt, not Max?”

  “Max has left Las Vegas.”

  Karen just stared.

  “They drifted apart,” Kit said, “and Matt drifted into view. Quite a nice view he is too. Shall I call the boys now?” She pulled her cell phone from her purse as Nicky and Van eased away.

  “Boys?” Karen said weakly, still numbed by the fact that Temple as well as Kit was producing a new beau.

  Kit dialed. “Hi, handsome. Yeah, you can steer your Italian tailoring up to the restaurant. The waiter knows you’ll be ordering a bit late.”

  Karen’s jaw was again agape. She glanced to Temple, then at the two empty place settings. Two, not one. Her jaw moved as if she was going to speak. But her first question would have been about Max, and even Karen Barr knew that would be a fatal move.

  She sipped her daiquiri. “This is very good. I haven’t had one in years.”

  “Then have another,” Kit urged. “You don’t often meet a new prospective s on-in-law and brother-in-law on the same day.”

  “Temple?” Karen gazed accusingly at Temple’s ringless left hand, and then Kit’s.

  “We’re letting the gentlemen install our engagement rings again tonight,” Kit said, “for your viewing pleasure. We’re very sorry about surprising you with two engagements, but we thought it would be better to do in person instead of over the phone.”

  “But we haven’t met this Matt person,” Karen said.

  “That’ll be taken care of tonight,” Kit answered. “Don’t worry. He’s a matinee idol dreamboat. Smart and rich too. What mother wouldn’t be over the moon about it?”

  “Has he been married before?” Karen asked. “After a certain age, it’s hard to find . . . uh . . . ”

  “Non-preowned models?” Temple asked. “Nope. Never married.”

  “And he’s how old?”

  “Thirty-four.”

  “Never-married men that age can be . . . difficult.”

  “Nope,” Temple answered. “See for yourself.”

  “He makes all this money from just talking on the radio?” her dad asked.

  “Think Garrison Keillor,” Temple said, “but cute.”

  She wanted to avoid the ex-priest part until her parents had gotten used to the idea of an Unknown Quantity in Temple’s life. Max had not been welcomed, but at least they’d met him.

  Kit had been playing lookout while Temple fended off her parents’ questions and now she grabbed Temple’s hand. “Here they come, our Greek gods.”

  The attractive hostess strutted across the floor with the guys in tow, the tall and dark Aldo in his usual yummy pastel silken Italian suit, shirt, and tie; Matt wearing less formal clothes, but relaxed and pale for the climate, enhancing his blond good looks.

  Barr Pere and Mére were satisfyingly speechless as Temple and Kit stood for the greeting pecks on the cheek . . . as the men were introduced and took their seats . . . as the waiter breezed by to take the newcomers’ drink orders. Then they spoke.

  “I’ll have another daiquiri,” said Karen.

  “Very good.”

  “And I’ll—” Roger gazed at his empty beer glass. “I’ll have a scotch on the rocks.”

  Kit and Temple crossed glances. Yes!

  After the drinks had been delivered and the new entree orders had been taken, the sixsome was alone at the table and the conversational ice was as solid as on Lake Minnehaha in mid-January.

  “I guess we should toast the happy couples,” Roger said finally, looking eagerly at his lowball glass gleaming gold with Johnnie Walker.

  “First,” Aldo said with a smile, “we must repeat the ring ceremony for our honored guests.” He flourished a velvet box from his side jacket pocket. Matt’s was produced from his inside jacket pocket, on the heart side, a detail Temple didn’t miss.

  The small boxes opened, dispensing major glitz. Rings slipped onto fingers they had previously fit like a dream.

  Roger raised his glass and everyone followed suit, Karen last. “To our loved ones, and their loved ones.”

  It was a darn good toast. Temple stared at her father. He winked. “Drink up, Karen, you don’t want to miss the Love Boat.”

  And then the chatter started. Man-to-man. Woman-to-woman. Cross-gender, cross-table. Aldo, incredibly, knew about broomball, that skating-rink sport Roger got a kick out of. Hockey with brooms. Aldo said bocci ball was a lot like it. Temple doubted it, but gave him high marks for creativity.

  Matt explained Temple’s important public relations coups to her mother, without mentioning any stray murder-solving or neck-risking. Karen became fascinated by the people and issues that surfaced on Matt’s “Midnight Hour” counseling program and his Chicago appearances on The Amanda Show. She watched that program, liked Amanda better than Oprah, who was getting to be “too much Oprah everywhere all the time.” She wanted Matt to e-mail her when his next appearance was coming up.

  E-mail? Her mother?

  “We’ve got a phone-Internet-TV setup now,” Karen told Temple when she spied her daughter’s amazement. “Roger is going to set me up with an e-mail identity and a Web page.”

  They asked Matt about his own parents.

  They lived, he said, in Chicago, not mentioning that it was separately and had been that way forever.

  Chicago! Great city. Just four hundred miles from the Twin Cities. Where would Kit and Aldo be living?

  Las Vegas and Manhattan. No way was Kit giving up her Greenwich Village redone condo. It was a very profitable investment. She was still writing a new novel now, but the industry wasn’t what it used to be and she was considering herself not so much semiretired as having a long ongoing narrative to write with Aldo. A trip to his native Italy, maybe some cruises. They’d both worked hard and it was time to enjoy leisure time.

  “We should take a cruise,” Karen told Roger, resting her hand on his.

  “We could go together,” Aldo said. “For a honeymoon, a second honeymoon for you two. Temple and Matt could come.”

  Karen looked hopefully at Temple. She hadn’t seen much of her daughter for more than a year, and maybe now she realized that it was her fault for being so negative about Max.

  Temple felt her throat closing up again. She was happy this evening was going so well for everyone, but Max hadn’t deserved her parents’ disapproval. She’d never regret a moment with him. And if he was dead now, with no one to know where or to mourn him, she always would.

  Matt put his hand over hers and leaned close. “We’ll do what we want about the wedding and honeymoon,” he assured her. “Your way.”

  She just nodded, not trusting herself to speak quite yet. It was nice to bask in astounded parental approval, but she’d never disown her own past. And Matt would never expect her to, as he could never renounce his past either.<
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  They sat quietly for a while, listening to the others talk and discover common ground, content to be by their unspoken selves. Just . . . content.

  Nuptial Nuances

  From the May 12, 2008, Las Vegas Review-Journal

  The wedding of the spring season was not a big-time celebrity do, or a shocking film-star wedding-chapel prank that became tabloid fodder for a week.

  No, it was a lavish yet tasteful affair involving some less spectacular, but intrinsically Las Vegas names.

  The Crystal Phoenix Hotel and Casino’s Crystal Court main floor reception area was a wilderness of ivory roses, tiger lilies, and bronze, mauve, and orange orchids. Baby’s breath floated like the airy spray from the plinths of freestanding metallic wall fountains where low-lit sheets of water shimmied over the textured surface like silk moire come to life.

  The famed French crystal chandeliers had been lowered over the wedding site, providing a dazzling yet intimate ceiling of unimaginable iridescent glitter, as if the guests were inside the Hope diamond.

  The white carpet was pristine and flanked by rows of ivory velvet Parson’s chairs for the guests.

  An archway, covered like a Rose Parade float in a solid carpet of ivory roses, had every hotel guest rubbernecking the eight Men in Black (tails) milling nearby, especially since they were all Fontana groomsmen. The man-about-town clan of eligible bachelors lost one of their own in the ceremony to follow, but they willingly relinquished their trademark pale and perfect Italian tailoring for the day to become tall, dark, and handsome in midnight black.

  Ladies, this was more sumptuous viewing than the Red Carpet at the Oscars!

  The bridesmaids seemed to appreciate that fact, clinging to their handsome escorts’ arms. They were a pretty bevy of young women, radiant in shades of silver, gold, bronze, pewter, and pink and copper gold. Oddly, none of them can be identified, as none have been seen about town with the respective Fontana brothers they were paired with, and, like Cinderella clones, they all fled the festivities before this reporter could get their names.

  While all were here to celebrate (or mourn) the nuptials of the eldest Fontana brother, Aldo, the only other married man in the clan of bachelor brothers played best man, with his wife as matron of honor. Mr. Nicky Fontana is the youngest of the brothers and owns the Crystal Phoenix, which his wife, the Continentally elegant Miss Van von Rhine, manages. Together they have made the Crystal Phoenix the biggest little boutique hotel in Las Vegas. The Crystal Phoenix led the way to “high-end” Las Vegas hotels long before the Bellagio, Paris, and Venice arrived on the scene.

  The groom’s uncle, Mr. Mario Fontana, whose name has many long local associations, was resplendent in a striped silver-and-black satin vest under a white dinner jacket. He escorted a lady who would only identify herself as “Miss Kitty.” She was a natural platinum blonde (that is, of a “certain” age), putting her Mae West proportions to great advantage in blond silk chiffon. Her appearance at the wedding caused much speculation about the widowed paterfamilias and his current affiliations.

  The maid of honor, the bride’s niece, is that well-known publicist around every major Las Vegas media event, Miss Temple Barr. She was escorted to her position by a rising Las Vegas star, Mr. Matt Devine, better known as “Mr. Midnight” on his WCOO-AM late-night, nationally syndicated, radio advice program. In an unobjective aside, this reporter must admit that Mr. Matt Divine makes Blond the New Black.

  Miss Temple Barr was a vision in a short, trained gown made of changeable silk organza, which was a bipolar blend of metallic red bronze and lavender mauve. Her shoulder-length corona of red-gold curled hair was a crowning glory in need of no additional diadem.

  Now for the happy couple. Mr. Aldo Fontana wore silver-gray tails, British-formal with yet an air of elegant Italian gusto.

  And here comes the bride, Miss Ursula “Kit” Carlson of Manhattan, actress and novelist. This is her and the groom’s first wedding, though both have passed the first flush of youth. She wore a gleaming ivory cut-lace leather Thierry Mugler suit that rocked, rolled, and took no prisoners. A petite woman, like her niece, she obviously believes in living large. The suit skirt was conventionally short in front to display her Jimmy Choo bronze ankle boots, but had a cut-lace leather bustle that changed into an ivory fall of lace that dusted the champagne-beige marble floor and white carpet as a train.

  Officiating as justice of the peace, was Miss Electra Lark, owner and operator of the Lovers’ Knot Wedding Chapel. She wore a white instead of a black robe for the ceremony.

  Perhaps the star of the show was the flower girl, an adorable toddler with her father’s dark hair and her mother’s poise, Cinnamon Fontana, her dotted Swiss pale green frock sashed in brown satin. Her bouquet mixed the same sophisticated metallic shades as other floral displays. The ring bearer was a black cat with the box affixed to a bow-tie collar. The best man lifted him to extract the rings, then placed him back on the white carpet, where he remained as obediently in place as a well-trained dog. The Fontana magic can tame even the feline nature.

  After the vows were exchanged, the groom kissed the bride long enough for his obviously restive brothers to indulge in boyish banter.

  The assembly adjourned to the hotel’s pool area for the champagne reception and dinner, and a spectacular display of fireworks that outshone the Strip’s neon glory and outroared the Mirage Hotel’s celebrated exploding volcano for half an hour.

  Wedding and hotel guests alike acclaimed the affair as the Wedding of the Century. So far. Mr. and Mrs. Fontana will honeymoon in Paris and London, then return to maintain residences in Manhattan and at the Crystal Phoenix’s new European-style multimillion-dollar condominium building, the Crystal Palace.

  Oh, yes, you will be wondering: Miss Temple Barr caught the bridal bouquet, despite the fevered attempts of seven attractive young women who occupied first-row seats for the ceremony. It struck this observer that the bride “threw” her throw.

  Is the toothsome Mr. Matt Devine the next candidate for a Crystal Phoenix wedding?

  Resurrection

  “My poor boy,” Garry Randolph murmured, lowering the week-old edition of the Review-Journal his Las Vegas contact had sent.

  The social scene reporter, although a bit gushy, had written vividly enough to paint him into the entire scene, especially since he’d glimpsed some of the players. Well, her especially, Temple Barr. Max’s Temple Barr.

  He slapped the paper against the small glass-topped table on his hotel balcony. The vast ripples of Alpine meadows beyond it were too magnificent and generous to absorb a fit of pique.

  Still, Max was a son to him. He wanted to witness his wedding, a happy ending to all those unhappy years since Max’s cousin Sean had exploded from an IRA pub bomb.

  Even if Max had been here now, Garry wasn’t sure whether he’d show him this news from what had been his most recent home. The boy’s body was compromised from the attempt to kill him even as he attempted to fake his death. His mind was . . . able, still quick and brilliant, but emptied of all its personal data, even the guilt of Sean’s death. That, at least, was a blessing. And his spirit was intact.

  Garry grinned. And he could still disappear, like any good magician, as he’d learned from his mentor for both stage and spying purposes.

  Damn! The magician once known as Gandolph the Great again slapped the folded paper to the glass tabletop as if trying to flatten a fly. Why had Max vanished, and that sleek lady psychiatrist with him?

  Another attempt on his life in the Swiss clinic? Most likely. Why leave with her? Had she made the attempt and he’d taken her as hostage? But a man with his legs in casts was hardly able to take a hostage, even a female one. Even Max. Had she and her henchmen abducted Max? More likely.

  Who would be her henchmen? Members of the rumored group of worldwide magicians, the Synth? Synthesis was an important concept in the kabbalah and ancient systems of magic and alchemy. Las Vegas had hosted a small, secret nest of Synth member
s, but—from what Max said when he infiltrated them in his own persona—they were petty plotters, more disgruntled unemployed magicians playing at conspiracy than any real force.

  Or so Max had concluded. Had he miscalculated? Certainly someone had arranged for him to hit a wall at high speed at the nightclub called Neon Nightmare, the very pyramid-shaped building in which the Las Vegas chapter of the Synth met.

  Pyramid. Another link to ancient magic systems. Perhaps he, Gandolph, should take these theatrical villains much more seriously. He was tired of returning to his old European spy grounds as Garry Randolph, calling in debts and trying to lay to rest Max’s ghosts, Sean and their personal femme fatale, the psychotic IRA operative Kathleen O’Connor, now finally at rest in an unmarked grave in Las Vegas.

  What was happening now could create new ghosts, perhaps for Garry Randolph himself.

  So far he’d followed the tried-and-true paths. In Switzerland, Ireland, and Las Vegas. But with Max missing, Gandolph the Great was coming out of retirement, albeit secretly.

  It would need more than spy work to quickly find and save Max this time.

  It would require a bit of that old black magic that Gandolph knew so well.

  Au Revoir, Max

  Somehow, during the night, he’d managed to turn himself over from sleeping on his stomach to his back.

  Pretty impressive for an invalid.

  The morning sun was slanting through the drawn sheer curtains, slashing light across the golden birchwood floor, on the pristine white comforter.

  His stomach rumbled, craving more food.

  He stretched out an arm. He’d never sensed her again in the night, not after the massage that had put him out cold. No, out warm. No dreams. No nightmares.

  His hand sunk into a foot of airy feathers, nothing more.

  He pushed up on his elbows, giving his leaden legs a bit more rest.

  Nothing there. He was alone in the room.

  Alarm racing down his limbs.

  Wait. It was morning. She was waiting her turn at the bathroom, or already in it. In fact, his bladder was burning. He’d slept too hard to use the chamber pot under the bed. But he sure needed relief now.